Lenin's Conspectus of Hegel's Science of Logic: Book III (Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Notion) (original) (raw)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Book Three:

(Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Notion)

Vol. V. The Science of Logic

Part II: Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Notion

ON THE NOTION IN GENERAL
In the first two parts, says Hegel, I had no Vorarbeiten,[1] but here, on the other hand, there is “verknöchertes Material”[2] (which it is necessary to “in Flüssigkeit brin- gen”[3]...) (3) [4] “Being and Essence are the moments of its becoming” (=des Begriffs).[5] (5)
Should be inverted: concepts are the highest product of the brain, the highest product of matter.
“Accordingly Objective Logic, which con- siders Being and Essence, really constitutes the genetic exposition of the Notion.” (6)
9-10: The great significance of the phi- losophy of Spinoza as the philosophy of substance (this standpoint is very advanced, but it is incomplete and not the most advanced: in general the refutation of a philosophic system does not mean discarding it, but de- veloping it further, not replacing it by another, one-sided opposed system, but incorporating it into something more advanced). In Spinoza’s system there is no free, independent, conscious subject (it lacks “_the freedom and inde- pendence of the self-conscious subject_”) (10), but in Spinoza also thought is an attribute of substance. (10 i. f.[6])
13 i. f.: Incidentally—just as at one time it was the fashion in philosophy “das Schlimme nachzusagen” der Einbil- dungskraft und den Gedächtnisse[7]—so now it is the fashion to belittle the significance of the “notion” (=“das höchste des Denkens”[8]) and to praise “das Unbegriefliche”[9] |allusion to Kant?
Passing to criticism of Kantian- ism, Hegel regards as Kant’s great merit (15) the advancement of the idea of the “transcendental unity of apperception” (the unity of the con- sciousness in which the Begriff is cre- ated), but he reproaches Kant for his one-sidedness and subjec- tivism:
“The object is truly in and for it- self only as it is in thought; as it is in intuition or ideation, it is appear- ance....” (16) (Hegel raises Kant’s idealism from being subjective to be- ing objective and absolute).... from intui- tion to cognition of objective reality...
Kant admits the objectivity of con- cepts (Wahrheit[10] is their object), but all the same leaves them subjective. He makes Gefühl und Anschau- ung[11] precede Understanding. (Ver- stand). Hegel speaks of this as follows: “Now, first, with regard to this relation of the understanding or the Notion to the stages which are supposed to precede it, it is of importance what science it is that is being treated, in order to determine the form of these stages. In our science, since it is pure logic, these stages are Being and Essence. In psychology, sensation and in- tuition and also ideation in general pre- cede understanding. In the Phenomenology of Mind, since it is the doctrine of con- sciousness, the acsent was made through the stages of sensuous consciousness and, next, perception, to understanding.” (17) In Kant the exposition is very “incom- plete” here. After that—the CHIEF THING—
...“The Notion must not here be considered as an act of self-conscious understanding, or as subjective under- standing: what we have to do with
is the Notion in and for itself, which constitutes a STAGE AS WELL OF The “eve” of the transfor-
NATURE AS OF SPIRIT. LIFE, OR ORGANIC NATURE, IS THAT STAGE OF NATURE AT WHICH THE NOTION EMER- GES.” (18) mation of objective idealism into materialism
There follows a very interesting passage (pp. 19-27) where Hegel refutes Kant, precisely epistemologically (Engels probably had this passage in mind when he wrote in Ludwig Feuerbach[12] that the main point against Kant had already been made by Hegel, insofar as this was possible from an idealistic standpoint),—exposing Kant’s duality and inconsistency, his, so to speak, vacillation between empiricism (= materialism) and idealism, Hegel him- self arguing wholly and exclu- sively from the standpoint of a more consistent idealism.
Begriff is still not the highest concept: still higher is the Idea = the unity of Begriff and Reality.
“‘It is only a notion’ is a thing com- monly said; and not only the Idea, but sen- suous, spatial, and temporally palpable existence is opposed to the Notion, as something which is more excellent than it. And the abstract is counted of less worth than the concrete, because from the former so much, of that kind, of material has been omitted. To those who hold this view, the process of abstraction means that for our subjective needs one or another characteristic is taken out of the concrete in such a manner that, while so many other properties and modifications of the ob- ject are omitted, it loses nothing in value
or dignity. They are the real and are reck- oned as counting in full, only they are left on the other side; and it is only the incapacity of understanding to absorb such riches that forces it to rest content with Kant belittles the power of reason
meagre abstraction. But if the given ma- terial of intuition and the manifold of ideation are taken as the real in opposi- tioh to that which is thought and to the
Notion, then this is a view the renuncia- tion of which is not only a condition of philosophy, but is assumed even by reli- gion; for how can these be needed and have significance if the fugitive and super- ficial appearance of the sensuous and the in- dividual are taken for the truth?.. Con- the more consistent idealist clings to God!
sequently, abstracting thought must not be considered as a mere setting-aside of the sensuous material, whose reality is said not to be lowered thereby; but it is its transcendence, and the reduction of it (as mere appearance) to the essential, which manifests itself in the Notion only.” (19-21)
Essentially, Hegel is completely right as opposed to Kant. Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract— provided it is correct (NB) (and Kant, like all philosophers, speaks of correct thought)—does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, of a law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not ab- surd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely. From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice,—such is the dialectical path of cognition of truth, of cognition of objective real- ity. Kant disparages knowledge in order to make way for faith: Hegel exalts knowledge, asserting that knowledge is knowledge of God. The materialist exalts knowledge of matter, of nature, consigning God, and the philosophical rabble that defends God, to the rubbish heap.
“A principal misapprehension here is that the natural principle or the beginning, which is the starting-point in natural de- velopment or in the history of the individ- ual in its formation, is taken as the true and as that which is first also in the No- tion.” (21) (—It is correct that people begin with that, but truth lies not in the beginning but in the end, or rather, in the continuation. Truth is not the ini- tial impression).... “But philosophy is not meant to be a narrative of what happens, but the cognition of what is true in happen- ings.” (21) In Kant there is “psychological ideal- ism” (22): Kant's categories “are only determinations which are derived from self- consciousness.” (22) Rising from under- standing (Verstand) to Reason (Vernunft), Kant belittles the significance of thought, denying is the capacity to “reach perfected truth.” (23) “It is declared” (Kant) “to be an abuse if logic, which ought to be merely a canon of judgment, is regarded as an organ for the production of objective discoveries. The notions of Reason, in which a higher
force (an idealistic phrase!) and a deeper (correct!!) content were of necessity divined, are less Konstitutives[13] |it should be: Objektives[14] than even the categories; they are mere ideas. Their use may cer- tainly be permissible, but these intelligible
essences, which should wholly unlock the truth, are to signify no more than hypothe- ses; and it would be completely arbitrary and reckless to ascribe any truth to them in and for themselves, since they can occur in no kind of experience. Could it ever have been thought that philosophy would gainsay the validity of the intelligible essences because they are without the spatial and temporal material of sensuousness?” (23)
Here, too, Hegel is essentially right: value is a category which entbehrt des Stoffes der Sinnlichkeit,[15] but it is truer than the law of supply and demand. Only Hegel is an idealist; hence the nonsense of “konstitutives,”[16] etc.
Kant, on the other hand, quite clearly recog- nises the “_objectivity_” (24) of thought (“des Denkens”) (“an identity of the Notion and the thing” (24))—but, on the other hand,
“the assertion is made again that we sure- ly cannot know things as they are in and for themselves, and that truth does not allow cognising reason to approach it; that truth which consists in the unity of object and Nation is after all only appearance, and NB Hegel in favour of the cognisability of the Thing- in-itself
the reason now is that content is only the manifold of intuition. Of this argument it has been remarked that this manifoldness, insofar as it belongs to intuition as op- posed to the Notion, is transcended precisely in the Notion, and that the object is led back
by the Notion into its non-contingent essen- tiality; the latter enters into appearance, and for this very reason the appearance is mamfestatlon not merely non-essential, but manifestation of Essence.” (24, 25) appearance is manifestation of essence
“It will always remain a matter for aston- ishment how the Kantian philosophy knew that relation of thought to sensuous exist- ence, where it halted, for a merely rela- tive relation of bare appearance, and fully acknowledged and asserted a higher unity of the two in the Idea in general, and, for example, in the idea of an intuitive under- standing; but yet stopped dead at this rel-
ative relation and at the assertion that the Notion is and remains utterly separated NB NB
from reality;—so that it affirmed as truth what it pronounced to be finite knowledge, and declared to be superfluous, improper, and figments of thought that which it recognised as truth, and of which it estab- lished the definite notion” (26) NB
In logic, the Idea “becomes the creator of Nature.” (26) !!Ha-ha!
Logic is “formelle Wissenschaft”[17] (27) as against the concrete sciences (of nature and mind), but its object matter is “die reine Warheit”[18]....(27) Kant himself, in asking what truth is (27) (the Critique of Pure Reason p. 83) and giving a trivial answer (“correspondence of knowledge with its object”), strikes at himself, for “the fundamental assertion of transcendental idealism” is —that “cognition is not capable of appre- hending Things-in-themselves”(27)— —and it is clear that all this is “an untrue idea.” (28) In arguing against the purely formal con- ception of logic (which Kant, too, is said to have)—saying that from the ordinary standpoint (truth is the correspondence |“Übereinstimmung” of knowledge with the object) correspondence “essentially de- mands two sides” (29), Hegel says that the formal element in logic is “pure truth” (29) and that ...“this formal element must therefore be thought of as being in itself much richer in determinations and content, and as hav- ing infinitely more influence upon the concrete, than it is generally held to have.... (29)
...“But, even if the logical forms are to be regarded as nothing more than formal functions of thought, yet this character would make them worthy of an investi- gation as to how far they correspond to the truth in themselves. A system of logic which neglects this can claim at most to have the value of a natural-historical description of the empirical phenomena of thought.” (30-31) (Herein is said to lie ? ?
the immortal merit of Aristotle), but “it is necessary to go further....” (31)
Thus, not only a description of the forms of thought and not only a nat- ural-historical descrip- tion of the phenomena of thought (wherein does that differ from a description of forms??) but also correspondence with truth, i.e.??, the quintessence or, more sim- ply, the results and outcome of the his- tory of thought?? Here Hegel is ideal- istically unclear, and fails to speak out fully. Mysticism. Not psychology, not the phenomenology of mind, but logic = the question of truth. In this con- ception, log- ic coincides with the theory of knowl- edge. This is in general a very important question. ‡
Cf. Encyclopaedia, Vol. VI, p. 319 [19]: “But in point of fact they” (die logischen Formen[20]), “turned round as forms of the notion, constitute the living spirit of the actual....” The general laws of move- ment of the world and of thought
Begriff in its development into “adäquaten ‡
Begriff,”[21] becomes the Idea. (33)[22] “Notion in its objectivity is the object which is in and for itself.” (33) NB NB

= objectivism + mysticism
and betrayal of development

SECTION ONE:

SUBJECTIVITY

The dialectical movement of the “No- tion”—from the purely “formal” notion at the beginning—to the Judgement (Urteil), then—to the Syllogism (Schluß) and—fi- nally to the transformation of the subjectiv- ity of the Notion into its objectivity. (34-35)[23] The first distinguishing feature of the Notion is Universaltity (Allegemeinheit). NB: The Notion grew out of Essence, and the latter out of Being.
The further development of the Uni- versal, the Particular (Besonderes) and the Individual (Einzelnes) is in the highest degree abstract and “abstruse.” The further development of the Uni- versal, the Particular (Besonderes) and the Individual (Einzelnes) is in the highest degree abstract and “abstruse.” En lisant... These parts of the work should be called: a best means for getting a headache[24]
Kuno Fischer expounds the “abstruse” considerations very poorly, taking up the lighter points—examples from the Ency- clopaedia, and adding banalities (against the French Revolution. Kuno Fischer, Vol. 8, 1901, p. 530), etc., but not showing the reader how to look for the key to the difficult transitions, nuances, ebbs and flows of Hegel’s abstract concepts.
Obviously, here too the chief thing for Hegel is to trace the transitions. From a certain point of view, under certain conditions, the universal is the individual, the individual is the uni- versal. Not only (1) connection, and inseparable connection, of all concepts and judgements, but (2) transitions from one into the other, and not only transi- tions, but also (3) _identity of opposites_— that is the chief thing for Hegel. But this merely “glimmers” through the fog of extremely abstruse exposition. The his- tory of thought from the standpoint of the development and application of the general concepts and categories of the Logic—voilà ce qu’il faut[25] Or is this after all a tribute to old formal logic? Yes! And another trib- ute—a trib- ute to mys- ticism = idealism Voilà an abundance of “determina- tions” and of Begriffsbe- stimmungen[26] in this part of the Logic!
Quoting, on p. 125, the “famous” syllo- gism—“all men are mortal, Gaius is a man, therefore he is mortal”—Hegel shrewdly
adds: “Boredom immediately descends when such a syllogism is heard approaching”— this is declared to be due to the “unnützen True!
Form,”[27] and Hegel makes the profound remark:
“All things are a Syllogism, a universal which is bound together with individuality through particularity; but of course they are not wholes consisting of three propo- sitions.” (126) NB “All things are a _syllo- gism_”... NB
Very good! The most common logical “figures”—(all this is in the Par. on the “First Figure of the Syllogism”) are the most common relations of things, set forth with the pedantic thoroughness of a school textbook, sit venia verbo.[28]
Hegel’s analysis of syllogisms (E.— B.—A., Eins[29]; Besonderes[30]; Allge- meines,[31] B.—E.—A., etc.) recalls Marx’s imitation of Hegel in Chapter I.[32]
On Kant
Inter alia: “Kant’s Antinomies of Reason are just this, that first one determination of a No- tion is made the foundation of the Notion, and next, and with equal necessity, the other....” (128-129)
One would have to return to Hegel for a step-by- step anal- ysis of any cur- rent logic and theo- ry of knowl- edge of a Kan- tian, etc. NB: Umkeh- ren[33] Marx applied Hegel’s dialectics in its rational form to political economy The formation of (abs- tract) notions and opera- tions with them already in- cludes the idea, conviction, consciousness of the law-governed character to the world. To distinguish causality from this connec- tion is stupid. To deny the objectivity of notions, the objectivity of the universal in the individual and in the particular, is impossible. Consequently, Hegel is much more profound than Kant, and others, in tracing the reflection of the movement of the objective world in the movement of notions. Just as the simple form of value, the individual act of ex- change of one given com- modity for another, already includes in an underdeveloped form all the main contradic- tions of capitalism,—so the simpler generalisation, the first and simplest formation of notions (judgements, syl- logisms, etc.) already de- notes man’s ever deeper cog- nition of the objective con- nection of the world. Here is where one should look for the true meaning, signifi- cance and role of Hegel’s Logic. This NB. NB Con- cerning the ques- tion of the true signifi- cance of He- gel’s Logic
Two aphorisms:
Concerning the question of the criti- cism of mod- ern Kantian- ism, Mach- ism, etc.: 1. Plekhanov criticises Kantianism (and agnosticism in general) more from a vul- gar-materialistic standpoint than from a dialectical-materialistic standpoint, inso- far as he merely rejects their views a li- mine,[34] but does not correct them (as He- gel corrected Kant), deepening, generalis- ing and extending them, showing the connection and transitions of each and every concept.
2. Marxists criticised (at the beginning of the twentieth century) the Kantians and Humists more in the manner of Feuer- bach (and Büchner) than of Hegel.
...“An experience which rests upon in- duction is taken as valid although admitted- ly the perception is not completed; but no more can be assumed than that no example can be produced contrary to this experience, insofar as the latter is true in and for itself.” (154) NB
This passage is in the §: “The Syllo- gism of Induction.” The simplest truth obtained in the simplest inductive way is always incomplete. Ergo: the connection of induction with analogy—with sur- mise (scientific foresight), the relativity of all knowledge and the absolute con- tent in each step forward in cognition.
Aphorism: It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and es- pecially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!

| The transition from the syllogism of analogy (about analogy) to the syllogism of necessity,—from the syllogism of induc- tion to the syllogism of analogy,—the syllogism of the universal to the individ- ual—the syllogism[35] from the individual to the universal,—the exposition of con- nection and transitions |con- nection is transition|, that is Hegel’s | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | aphorism. | task. Hegel actually proved that logical forms and laws are not an empty shell, but the reflection of the objec- | | tive world. More correctly, he did not prove, but made a brilliant guess. | |
In the Encyclopaedia Hegel re- marks that the division of Understanding and Reason, of Notions of one kind or the other must be understood in such a way “that our mode of behaviour is either
to stop short at the merely negative and abstract form of the Notion, or to conceive the latter, in accordance with its true abstract and concrete notions
nature, as that which is at once positive
and concrete. Thus, for example, if freedom is regarded as the abstract opposite of ne- cessity, this is merely the Notion of under- standing of freedom, whereas the true and rational Notion of freedom contains ne- cessity as transcended within it.” (Pp. 347- 348), Vol. VI[36]) Freedom and Necessity
Ibidem p. 349: Aristotle described the logical forms so completely that “essen- tially” there has been nothing to add. Usually the “figures of the syllogism” are regarded as empty formalism. “They” (these figures) “have, however, a very fun- damental meaning, based on the necessity that every moment, as determination of the Notion, itself becomes the whole and mediating Ground.” (352, Vol. VI) Encyclopaedia (Vol. VI, pp. 353-354)
“The objective meaning of the figures of the syllogism is in general that every- thing rational is manifested as a threefold syllogism, such that each of its members assumes the position of one of the extremes NB
as well as that of the mediating middle. Such, for example, is the case with the three branches of philosophy, i. e., the Logical
Idea, Nature and Mind. Here it is Nature that is first of all the middle, connecting member. Nature, this immediate totality, unfolds itself in the two extremes of the NB
Logical Idea and Mind.”[37]
“Nature, this immediate totality, un- folds itself in the Logical Idea and Mind.” Logic is the science of cognition. It is the theory of knowledge. Knowl- edge is the reflection of nature by man. But this is not simple, not an imme- diate, not a complete reflection, but the process of a series of abstractions, the formation and development of con- cepts, laws, etc., and these concepts, laws, etc., (thought, science = “the log- ical Idea”) embrace conditionally, ap- proximately, the universal, law-governed character of eternally moving and de- veloping nature. Here there are actually, objectively, three members: 1) nature; 2) human cognition = the human brain (as the highest product of this same nature), and 3) the form of reflec- tion of nature in human cognition, and this form consists precisely of con- cepts, laws, categories, etc. Man cannot comprehend = reflect = mirror nature as a whole, in its completeness, its “imme- diate totality,” he can only eternally come closer to this, creating abstrac- tions, concepts, laws, a scientific pic- ture of the world, etc., etc. NB: Hegel “_only_” deifies this “logical idea,” obe- dience to law, univer- sality
+ “Spirit, however, is only spirit through being mediated by Nature.... ”It is Spirit that recognises the logical Idea in Nature NB
and so raises it to its essence....” “The logical Idea is ‘the absolute Substance both of Spirit and of Nature, the universal, the all-pervading.’” (353-354) In regard to analogy an acute observation:
“It is the instinct of reason which allows one to divine that one or another empiri- cally found determination has its roots in the inner nature or genus, of an object, and which bases itself further on this de- termination.” (357) (VoL VI, p. 359)
And p. 358: And justifiable contempt for the philosophy of nature has been evoked by the futile play with empty analogies.
In ordinary logic[38] thought is formal- istically divorced from objectivity. “Thought is held here to be a mere sub- jective and formal activity, and what is objective is held to be, in contrast to thought, something firm and present for itself. This dualism, however, is not the truth, and it is thoughtless procedure to accept the determinations of subjectivity and objectivity in this way without fur- ther question, and without inquiring into their origin....” (359-360) In reality, sub- jectivity is only a stage of development from Being and Essence—whereupon this subjectivity “dialectically ‘breaks through its barrier’” and “opens out into objectiv- ity by means of the syllogism.” (360)
Very profound and clever! The laws of logic are the reflections of the objec- tive in the subjective consciousness of man.
Vol. VI, p. 360 “The realised Notion” is the object. This transition from the subject, from the notion, to the object is said to seem “strange,” but by the object one should understand not simply Being, but some- thing definitive, “something independent, concrete and complete in itself....” (361) “The world is the other being of the Idea.” Subjectivity (or the Notion) and the object—are the same and not the same.... (362).
Nonsense about the ontological argu- ment, about God!

| ...“It is wrong to regard subjectivity and objectivity as a fixed and abstract antithe- sis. Both are wholly dialectical....” (367) | NB | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------ | |

SECTION TWO:

OBJECTIVITY

(Logic) V, 178:[39] The twofold significance of objectivity: ...“similarly a twofold significance appears for Objectivity: it stands opposed to the in- dependent Notion, but also is that which objectivity
is in and for itself....” (178)
...“The knowledge of truth is placed in the cognition of the object as object without the addition of any subjective reflection...” (178) cognition of the object
Discourses on “mechanism”—further on—extremely abstruse and almost com- plete nonsense. Further, idem about chemism, the stages of “judgment,” etc.
The paragraph entitled “_Law_” (198-199) does not give what could be expected from Hegel on such an interesting question. It is strange why “law” is referred to “mech- anism”?
The concept of law approximates here the concepts “order” (Ordnung); uniformity (Gleichförmigkeit); necessi- this approxi- mation is very important
ty; the “soul” der objektiven Totalität;[40] the “principle of self-movement.”
All this from the standpoint that mech- anism is the other-being of spirit, of the Notion, etc., of the soul, of individ- uality.... Obviously, playing with empty analogies!
To be noted: on p. 210 the concept of
“Naturnotwendigkeit”[41] is encountered— “both mechanism and Chemism are, then, comprehended under natural necessity”... for we see here “its” (des Begriffs) “submer-
((( sion into externality” (ibidem). )) “nature = submersion of the No- tion into externality” (ha-ha!)
“It was mentioned that the opposition be- tween Teleology and Mechanism is, in the first instance, the more general opposition between freedom and necessity. Kant sets freedom and necessity
out the opposition in this form under the Antinomies of Reason, as the ‘Third Con- flict of Transcendental Ideas.’” (213) Briefly repeating Kant’s proofs, thesis and antith- esis, Hegel notes the hollowness of these proofs and directs attention to the result of Kant’s considerations:
Kant’s solution of this Antinomy is the same as the general solution of the others: that reason can prove neither of these propositions, since we can have no determinant principle a priori about the pos- sibility of things according to mere empirical Hegel versus Kant (on freedom and necessity)
laws of nature; consequently the two must
not be regarded as objective prop- ositions but as subjective maxims;
on the one hand I ought always to reflect upon all natural events according to the principle of pure natural mechanism; but
this does" not prevent me from investigat- ing certain forms of nature, should the occasion be given, according to another Bien!
maxim, namely, that of final causes;—as though these two maxims (which further are supposed to be required only by human reason) were not in the same opposition in which the propositions stand.—As was
observed above, from this whole standpoint the only question which is demanded by philosophic interest is not looked into, namely, which of these two principles is true in and for itself; but, for this point
of view, it is irrelevant whether the prin- ciples are to be considered as objective de- terminations of nature (that is here, as de- terminations existing externally) or as mere maxims of a subjective cognition.—But in fact this is a subjective, that is, a contingent, cognition, which applies one or the other maxim as the occasion may suggest according to whether it thinks it appropriate to the given objects, but otherwise does not ask about the truth of these determinations themselves, wheth- er both are determinations of the objects or of cognition.” (215-216)

| Hegel: “The End has turned out to be the third term with respect to Mechanism and Chemism; it is their truth. Since it still stands within the sphere of Objectivity or of the immediacy of the to- tal Notion, it is still affec- ted by externality as such; an objective world to which it relates itself still stands opposed to it. From this side mechanical causality (in which generally Chem- ism must be included) still appears in this End- relation (which is external), but as subordinated to it and as transcended in and for itself.” (216-217) ...“From this results the nature of the subordination of the two previous forms of the objective process: the Other, which in them lies in the infinite progress, is the Notion which at first is posited as external to them, which is End; not only is the Notion their substance, but also exter- nality is the moment which is essential to them and con- stitutes their determinate- | | | | | Materialist Dialec- tics: ”The laws of the external world, of nature, which are divided into mechanical and chemical (this is very important) are the bases of man’s purposive activity. In his practical activity, man is confronted with the objective world, is depend- ent on it, and determines his activity by it. From this aspect, from the aspect of the practical (purposive) activity of man, the mechanical (and chemi- cal) causality of the world (of nature) appears as though something external, as though something secon- dary, as though something hidden. Two forms of the ob- jective process: nature (mechanical and chemical) and the purposive ac- tivity of man. The mutual relation of these forms. At the beginning, man’s ends appear foreign (“other”) in relation to nature. Human consciousness, science (“der | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ness. Thus mechanical or chemical technique sponta- neously offers itself to the End-relation by reason of its character of being deter- mined externally; and this relation must now be further considered.” (217) | | | | | Begriff”), reflects the essence, the substance of nature, but at the same time this consciousness is something external in relation to na- ture (not immediately, not simply, coinciding with it). | | MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL TECHNIQUE serves human ends just be- | | | | | | | cause its character (essence) consists in its being deter- mined by external condi- tions (the laws of nature). | | | | | |

((TECHNIQUE and the_OBJECTIVE_ world.
TECHNIQUE and ENDS))
...“It” (der Zweck[42]) “has before it an objective, Mechanical and Chemical world, to which its activity relates itself as to something already given....” (219-220) “To this extent it still has a truly extra- mundane existence, namely, insofar as this objectivity stands opposed to it....” (220)
In actual fact, man’s ends are engen- dered by the objective world and pre- suppose it,—they find it as something given, present. But it seems to man as if his ends are taken from outside the world, and are independent of the world (“freedom”). ((NB. All this in the § in “The Sub- jective End.” NB)) (217-221)
“The End binds itself with objectivity through a Means, and in objectivity with itself.” (221 §: “The Means.”)
Further, since the End is finite it has a finite content; accordingly it is not absolute or utterly in and for itself reason- able. The Means however is the external middle of the syllogism which is the realisa- tion of the End; in it therefore reason- ableness manifests itself as such—as pre- serving itself in this external Other and precisely through this externality. To that extent the Means is higher than the finite Ends of external usefulness: the plough is more honourable than those immediate enjoyments which are procured by it, and serve as Ends. The instrument is preserved, while the immediate enjoyments pass away the germs of historical materialism in Hegel
and are forgotten. IN HIS TOOLS MAN POSSESSES POWER OVER EXTERNAL NATURE. ALTHOUGH AS REGARDS HIS ENDS, HE FREQUENTLY IS SUB- JECTED TO IT.” (226) Hegel and historical materialism

Vorbericht, i.e., preface of the book
dated: Nuremberg, 21.VII.1816

This is in the §:
“The Realised End”

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AS ONE OF THE APPLICATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS OF THE IDEAS OF GENIUS—SEEDS EXISTING IN EMBRYO IN HEGEL.
“The teleological process is the transla- tion into objectivity of the Notion (sic!) which exists distinctly as Notion....” (227)

| THE CATEGO- RIES OF LOGIC AND HUMAN PRACTICE | When Hegel endeavours—sometimes even huffs and puffs—to bring man’s purposive activity under the categories of logic, saying that this activity is the “syllogism” (Schluß), that the subject (man) plays the role of a “mem- ber” in the logical “figure” of the | | NB | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ------ | | “syllogism,” and so on—THEN THAT IS NOT MERELY STRETCHING A POINT, A MERE GAME. THIS HAS A VERY PROFOUND, PURELY MA- TERIALISTIC CONTENT. IT HAS TO BE INVERTED: THE PRACTICAL ACTIVITY OF MAN HAD TO LEAD HIS CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE REPE- | | | | | TITION OF THE VARIOUS LOGICAL FIGURES THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS OF TIMES IN ORDER THAT THESE FIGURES COULD OBTAIN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AXIOMS. THIS NOTA BENE. | NB | | |
“The movement of the End has now achieved that the moment of externality is posited not only in the Notion, and the Notion is not only Ought and tendency, but, as concrete totality, is identical NB
with immediate Objectivity.” (235) At the end of the § on “The Realised End,” at the end of the section (Chapter III: “Te- leology”)—of Section II: “Objectivi- ty,” the transition to Section III: “The Idea.” NB
Remarkable: Hegel comes to the “Idea” as the coincidence of the Notion and the object, as truth, through the practical, purposive activity of man. A very close approach to the view that man by his practice proves the objective correctness of his ideas, concepts, knowl- edge, science. FROM THE SUBJECTIVE NOTION AND SUBJECTIVE END TO 0BJEC- TIVE TRUTH
SECTION THREE:

THE IDEA

The beginning of Section III: “The Idea”
“The Idea is the adequate Notion: ob- jective truth, or the truth as such.” (236)
In general, the introduction to Section III (“The Idea”) of Part II to the Logic (“Subjective Logic”) (Volume V, pp.236- 243) and the corresponding §§ of the
Encyclopaedia (§§ 213-215)—ARE PER- HAPS THE BEST EXPOSITION OF DIALECTICS. Here too, the coincidence, NB
so to speak, of logic and epistemology is shown in a remarkable brilliant way. The expression “Idea” is used also in the sense of a simple representation. Kant.
“Kant has claimed the expression idea again for the Notion of reason. Now accord- Hegel against Kant
ing to Kant the Notion of reason is to be
the Notion of the unconditioned, and, with respect to phenomena, to be transcen- dental, which means that it is impossible to make any adequate empirical use of it. Notions of reason (according to Kant) are to serve for the conceptual compre- hension, and Notions of understanding for the bare understanding, of percep- tions. But, in fact, if the latter really against the transcenden- tal in the sense of sepa- ration of (objective) truth from empiricism
are Notions then they are Notions,—con
ceptual comprehension takes place through them....” (236) très bien!
It is equally incorrect to regard the Idea as something “unreal”—as people say: “it is merely an idea.”
If thoughts are merely subjective and contingent they certainly have no further value; but in this they are not inferior to temporal and contingent actualities, which also have no further value except that très bien!
which is proper to contingencies and phe- nomena. And if conversely the Idea is not to be rated as true because, with respect to phenomena, it is transcendental, and no object can be assigned to it, in the sen- suous world, coinciding with it, this is a strange lack of understanding,—for so the Idea is denied objective validity because it lacks that which constitutes appearance, or the untrue being of the ob- jective world.” (237-238) In relation to practical ideas, Kant him- self admits that the appeal to experience against ideas is pöbelhaft[43]: he holds ideas as a Maximum to which one should endeav- our to bring actuality closer. And Hegel continues: “But, the result having been reached that the Idea is the unity of the Notion and Objectivity, the truth, it must not merely be considered as a goal which must be
approached while it still remains a kind of beyond; it must be held that whatever is actual is only insofar as it contains and expresses the Idea. The object, and Hegel against “Jenseits”[44] of Kant
the objective and subjective world, not
merely ought to conform to the Idea, but are themselves the conformity of Notion and reality; that reality which does not correspond to the Notion is mere appear- ance, or that subjective, contingent, ca- pricious entity which is not the truth.” (238) The confor- mity of con- cepts with objects is not subjective

| | “It” (die Idee) “is, first, simple truth, the identity of the Notion and Objec- tivity as a universal.... (242) ...“Secondly, it is the re- lation of the Subjectivity, which is for itself, of the simple Notion to its Ob- jectivity which is distinct from it, the former is es- sentially the impulse to tran- scend this separation.... ...“As this relation, the Idea is the process in which it sunders itself into in- dividuality and its inor- ganic nature, and again brings the latter back un- der the power of the sub- ject, returning to the first simple universality. The self-identity of the Idea is one with the process; and the thought which frees ac- tuality from the semblance of purposeless changeabili- ty and transfigures it into the Idea must not imagine this truth of actuality as a dead repose or bare pic- ture, matt, without im- pulse or motion, or as a gen- ius, number, or abstract thought. In the Idea the Notion reaches freedom, and because of this the Idea contains also the harshest | The idea (read: man’s knowledge) is the coinci- dence (conformity) of no- tion and objectivity (the “universal”). This—first. Secondly, the idea is the relation of the subjectiv- ity (= man) which is for itself (= independent, as it were) to the objectivity which is distinct (from this Idea).... Subjectivity is the im- pulse to destroy this sepa- ration (of the idea from the object). Cognition is the process of the submersion (of the mind) in an inorganic nature for the sake of subordinating it to the power of the subject and for the sake of gener- alisation (cognition of the universal in its phenome- na).... The coincidence of thought with the object is a process: thought (= man) must not imagine truth in the form of dead repose, in the form of a bare pic- ture (image), pale (matt), without impulse, without motion, like a genus, like a number, like abstract thought. The idea contains also | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | NB | opposition; its repose con- sists in the security and certainty with which it eter- nally creates and eternally overcomes it, coinciding in it with itself.” | the strongest contradiction, repose (for man’s thought) consists in the firmness and certainty with which he eternally creates (this con- tradiction between thought | | and object) and eternally overcomes it.... | | |

| Cognition is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the ob- ject. The reflection of nature in man’s thought must be understood not “life- lessly,” not “abstractly,” not dev- oid of movement, not with- out contradictions, but in the eternal process of movement, the aris- ing of contradictions and their solution. | | NB | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ------ |

“The Idea is ... the Idea of the True and of the Good, as Cognition and Vo- lition.... The process of this finite cognition and (NB) action (NB) makes the universality, which at first is abstract, into a totali- ty, whence it becomes per- fected objectivity.” (243) The idea is Cognition and aspiration (volition) [of man]... The process of (tran- sitory, finite, limited) cog- nition and action converts abstract concepts into per- fected objectivity.
Also in the Encyclo- paedia (Vol. VI).[45] En- cyclopaedia § 213 (p. 385)
...“The Idea is truth, for truth is the correspond- ence of objectivity with the Notion.... But also everything actual, insofar as it is true, is the Idea... The individual Being is some one aspect of the Idea; hence it requires also other actualities, which likewise appear as existing specially for themselves; it is only in all of them to- gether and in their rela- tion that) the Notion is realised. The individual by itself does not correspond to its Notion; this limi- tation of its determinate existence constitutes its fi- nitude and its downfall....” Individual Being (an ob- ject, a phenomenon, etc.) is (only) one side of the Idea (of truth). () Truth re- quires still other sides of reality, which likewise ap- pear only as independent and individual (besonders für sich bestehende[46]). Only in their to- tality, (zusammen), and in their relation (Be- ziehung) is truth realised.
(The totality of all sides of the phenomenon, of reality and their (re- ciprocal) _relations_—that is what truth is composed of. The relations (= transitions = contradictions) of notions = the main content of logic, by which these concepts (and their relations, transitions, contradictions) are shown as reflections of the objec- tive world. The dialectics of things produces the dialectics of ideas, and not vice versa.) Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things (phenom- ena, the world, nature) in the dialectics of concepts #
# This aphorism should be expressed more popularly, without the word dia- lectics: approximately as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one no- tion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel brilliantly divined PRECISELY THIS RELA- TION OF THINGS, OF NATURE. indeed divined, not more
what consti- tutes dialec- tics? =...................... mutual dependence of notions ” ” all ” without exception transitions of notions from one into another ” all” without exception. = NB Every notion oc- curs in a certain relation, in a certain connection with all the others

| | | | | The relativity of opposition between notions... the identity of opposites between notions. | | | - | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |

“Truth is first of all taken to mean
that I know how something is. This is
truth, however, only in reference to con-
sciousness, or formal truth, bare correct-
ness. (§ 213, 386) Truth in the deeper
sense, on the contrary; consists in the
identity between objectivity and the
Notion....

“A bad man is an untrue man, i.e.,
a man who does not behave in confor-
mity with the notion of him, or his posi-
tion. Nothing, however, can exist entire-
ly devoid of identity between the no-
tion and reality. Even what is bad and
untrue has being only insofar as its real-
ity still, somehow, conforms to its no-
tion....

...“Everything deserving the name of philosophy has always been based on
the consciousness of an absolute unity
of that which the understanding accepts as valid only in its sep- aration....”

The differ- ences between Being and Essence, be- tween Notion and Objec- tivity, are relative “The stages of Being and Essence hith- erto considered, as well as those of No- tion and of Objectivity, are not, when so distinguished, something permanent, resting upon themselves. But they have proved to be dialectical, and their truth con- sists only in being moments of the idea.” (387-388)

The moments of the cognition (= of
the “idea”) of nature by man—these
are the categories of logic.

Vol. VI, p. 388 (§ 214): “The Idea may be described in many ways. It may be called reason (this is the proper philosophical signification of rea- son); also subject-object; the unity of the ideal and the real, of the finite and the infinite, of soul and body; the possibility which has its actuality in its own self; that whose nature can be conceived only as existent, etc. All these descriptions
apply, because the Idea contains all the relations of understanding; but contains them in their infinite self-return and self- (the idea) truth is all-sided
identity. “It is easy work for the understanding to show that everything said of the Idea is self-contradictory. But that can quite as well be rendered to the understanding or rather it is already accomplished in the idea. And this work, which is the work of reason, is certainly not so easy as that of the under- standing.—The understanding may demon- strate that the Idea is self-contradictory, because, for instance, the subjective is only subjective and is always confronted by the objective; that Being is something quite different from the notion and there- fore cannot be extracted out of it; and that likewise the finite is only finite and the
exact antithesis of the infinite, and there- fore not identical with it; and so on with all the determinations. Logic, however, demonstrates the opposite of all this, name-
ly, that the subjective, which is to be subjective only, the finite, which is to be finite only, the infinite, which is to be infinite only, and so on, have no truth, but contradict themselves, and pass into their opposites. Thus, this transition, and the unity in which the extremes are in- cluded as transcended, as appearance or moments, is revealed as their truth. (388)
“The understanding, when it tackles the Idea, falls into a double misunderstand- NB:
ing. First, it takes the extremes of the Idea (be they expressed as they will, so long as they are in their unity) still in that sense and determination in which Abstractions and the “concrete unity” of
they are not in their concrete unity, but opposites.
remain abstractions outside of the Idea. “It” (der Verstand[47]) “no less mistakes the relation between them, even when it has A beautiful example: the
NB the in- divid- ual = the uni- versal been expressly stated; thus, for example, it over- looks even the nature of the copula in the judgment, which affirms that the individual, the subject, is just as much not individual, but uni- versal.—In the second place, the understand- simplest and clearest. The dialectic of notions and its material- ist roots
ing believes its reflection,—that the self-indent- ical Idea contains its own negative, the contradiction,—to be an external reflec- tion which does not lie within the Idea itself. In fact, however, this is not the understand- ing’s own wisdom. The Idea itself is the dialectic which for ever sepa- The dialectic is not in man’s understand- ing, but in the “idea,” i.e., in objec- tive reality
rates and distinguishes the self-identical from the differentiated, the subjective from
“eternal life” = dialectics the objective, the finite from the infinite, the soul from the body. Only insofar is it an eter- nal creation, eternal vitality, and eternal spirit....” (389)
VI, § 215, p. 390:
The idea is ... a process The Idea is essentially a process, be- cause its identity is the absolute and free identity of the notion, only insofar as it is absolute negativity and for that reason dialectical.”
This NB Hence, Hegel says, the expression “uni- ty” of thinking and being, of finite and infinite, etc., is falsch,[48] because it ex- presses “quietly persisting identity.” It is not true that the finite simply neutral- ises (“netralisiert”) the infinite and vice versa. Actually, we have a process.

If one calculates ... every second more
than ten persons in the world die, and
still more are born. “Movement” and “mo-
ment”: catch it. At every given moment
... catch this moment. Idem in simple
mechanical motion (contra Chernov).[49]

“The idea as a process runs through three stages in its development. The first form of the idea is Life.... The second form is ... the idea in the form of Knowledge, which appears under the double aspect of the theoretical and practical idea. The process of knowledge results in the resto- ration of unity enriched by difference, and this gives the third form, that of the Absolute Idea...” (391)
The idea is “truth” (p. 385, § 213). The idea, i.e., truth as a process— for truth is a _process_—passes in its development (Entwicklung) through three stages: 1) life; 2) the process of knowl- edge, which includes human practice and technique (see above); 3) the stage of the absolute idea (i.e., of complete truth). Life gives rise to the brain. Nature is reflected in the human brain. By checking and applying the correctness of these reflections in his practice and technique, man arrives at objective truth. Truth is a process. From the subjective idea, man advances towards objec- tive truth through “practice” (and technique).
Logic. Volume V.
Section Three: Idea. Chapter I. Life. The question of Life does not belong to “logic as it is commonly imagined.” (Bd. V. p. 244[50]) If, however, the subject-mat- ter of logic is truth, and “truth as such wesentlich im Erkennen ist,[51]” then cognition has to be dealt with—in connection with cognition it is already (p. 245) necessary to speak of life. Sometimes so-called “pure logic” is fol- lowed by “applied” (angewandte) logic, but then...
...“every science must be absorbed in logic, since each is an applied logic in- sofar as it consists in apprehending its object in forms of thought and of the Notion.” (244) every science is applied logic
The idea of including Life in logic is comprehensible—and brilliant— from the standpoint of the process of the reflection of the objective world in the (at first individual) consciousness of man and of the testing of this consciousness (reflection) through prac- tice—see:
...“Consequently, the original Judg- ment of Life con- sists in this, that it separates itself as individual sub- ject from the objec- tive....” (248) Encyclopaedia[52] § 216: only in their connection are the individual limbs of the body what they are. A hand, separated from the body, is a hand only in name (Aristotle). Life = indi- vidual sub- ject separates itself from the objective
If one considers the relation of sub- ject to object in logic, one must take into account also the general premises of Being of the concrete subject (= life of man) in the objective surroundings.
Subdivisions:[53] 1) Life, as “the living individual” (§ A) 2) “The Life-process” 3) “The Process of Kind” (Gattung), re- production of man, and transition to cognition.
(1) “subjective totality” and “indiffer- ent objectivity.” (2) The unity of subject and object
...“This objectivity of the Living Entity is Organism; the objectivity is the means and instru- ment of the End....” (251) Encyclopaedia § 219: ...“Inorganic nature which is subdued by the living being suffers this because it is in itself the same as life is for itself.” Invert it = pure materialism. Ex- cellent, profound, correct!! And also NB: shows how extremely correct and apt are the terms “an sich” and “für sich”!![54] NB
Further, the “subsumption” under log- ical categories of “sensibility” (Sensi- bilität), “irritability” (Irritabilität)— this is said to be the particular in con- trast to the universal!!—and “reproduc- tion” is an idle game. Forgotten is the nodal line, the transition into a dif- ferent plane of natural phenomena. And so on. Pain is “actual existence” of contradiction in the living individual. Hegel and the play with “organic Notions” !!!
The comic in Hegel Or again, reproduction of man ... “is their” (of two individuals of different sex) “realised identity, is the negative unity of the kind which intro-reflects itself out of the division....” (261) Hegel and the play with “organism”
Logic. Volume V. Section III. The Idea. Chapter II. The Idea of Cognition (pp. 262-327)
...“Its” (des Begriffs[55]) “reality in gener- al is the form of its determinate existence, and what matters is the determination of this form; upon this depends the distinction of that which the Notion is in itself or as subjective, and of what it is as submerged into Objectivity, and next in the Idea of Life.” (263) subjective consciousness and its sub- mersion in objectivity
mysticism! ...“Spirit not only is infi- nitely richer than Nature, but the absolute unity of opposites in the Notion con- stitutes its essence....” (264) ? mysticism!
Hegel against Kant In Kant “the Ego” is as a transcenden- tal subject of thoughts” (264); “At the same time this Ego, according to Kant’s own expression, is awkward in this respect,
i.e., that in Kant the ? “Ego” is an empty form (“self- extraction”) without concrete analysis of the process of cognition that we must always make use of it in order to make any judgment about it....” (p. 265)
“In his” (= Kant’s) “criticism of these determinations” (namely: abstrakte ein-
NB: Kant and Hume— sceptics seitige Bestimmungen “der vormaligen— pre-Kantian—Metaphysik”[56] concerning the “soul”) “he” (Kant) “simply followed Hume’s sceptical manner: holds fast to that which appears as Ego in self-consciousness, from NB
which however everything empirical must be omitted, since the aim is to know its essence, or the Thing-in-itself. Now noth- ing remains but the phenomenon of the I think which accompanies every idea; and nobody has the slightest notion of this ‘I think.’” (266) # # #
Apparently, Hegel perceives scepti- cism here in the fact that Hume and Kant do not see the appearing Thing- in-itself in “phenomena,” divorce phe- nomena from objective truth, doubt the objectivity of cognition, remove, weg- lassen, alles Empirische[57] from the Ding-an-sich....[58] And Hegel contin- ues: Wherein does Hegel see the scepticism of Hume and Kant?
# # # ...“It must certainly be admitted that it is impossible to have the slightest notion of Ego or anything else (the No- tion included), if no Notion is formed and a halt is made at the simple, fixed, general idea and name.” (266) It is impossi- ble to under- stand without the process of understand- ing (of cog- nition, con- crete study, etc.)
In order to understand, it is necessary empirically to begin understanding, study, to rise from empiricism to the uni- versal. In order to learn to swim, it is necessary to get into the water.
According to Hegel, the old metaphysics, in the endeavour to cognise truth, divided objects in accordance with the characteris- tic of truth into substances and phenomena. Kant’s Critique rejected the investigation of truth.... “But to stand fast at appearance and what proves to be mere sensuous representation in everyday consciousness is tantamount to a renunciation of the Notion and of philosophy.” (269) Kant restricts himself to “phenomena”
§ A: “The Idea of the True. At first the sub- jective Idea is impulse.... Consequently, the impulse has the determinateness of cancelling its own subjectivity, of making concrete its reality (which was abstract at first) I and of filling it, for content, with the world which is presupposed by its subjectivity.... As Cognition is the Idea as End or as subjective idea, so the ne- gation of the world which is presupposed as being in itself is first negation....” (274-275)
i.e. the first stage, moment, begin- ning, approach of cognition is its fini- tude (Endlichkeit) and subjectivity, the negation of the world-in-itself—the end of cognition is at first subjective....
Kant elevated one side to “Strangely enough this side of finitude has latterly” (ob- viously Kant) “been seized upon and has been taken to be the absolute relation of Cognition— Hegel against Kant:
the Abso- lute in Kant, the Thing- in-itself is an absolute “Jenseits”[59] as though the finite as such was to be the absolute! From this point of view the Object is assigned the unknown property of being a Thing-in-itself beyond cognition, which, together with truth, is considered an absolute Beyond for Cognition.
The determinations of thought in general, the categories and the determinations of reflection as well as the formal Notion
and its moments, are here given the posi- tion not that they are finite determina- tions in and for themselves, but that they are so in the sense that they are subjective Kant’s subject- ivism
as against that empty Thinghood-in-itself; the error of taking this relation of the untruth of Cognition as valid has become the universal opinion of modern times.” (276)
Kant took the finite, transitory, re- lative, conditional character of human cognition (its categories, causality, etc., etc.) as subjectivism, and not as the dialectics of the idea (= of nature itself), divorcing cognition from the object.
...“But cognition must by its own pro- cess resolve its finitude and therefore its contradiction.” (277) But the proc- ess of cogni- tion leads it to objective truth
...“It is one-sided to imagine analysis in such a manner as though nothing were in the object except what has been put into it; and it is equally one-sided to think that the determinations which re- sult are simply taken out of it. The former idea is, as is known, the thesis of sub- jective idealism, which in analysis takes the activity of Cognition only as a one- sided positing, beyond which the Thing- in-itself remains hidden; the latter idea belongs to so-called realism, which takes the subjective Notion as an empty iden- tity that absorbs the thought-determina- tions from without.” (280) ...“But the two moments cannot be sep- arated; in its abstract form, into which Hegel against subjective idealism and “realism”
analysis elaborates it, the logical is cer- tainly present only in Cognition; while conversely it is not only something posited but also something which is in itself.” (280) The Objectiv- ity of logic
Logical concepts are subjective so long as they remain “abstract,” in their ab- stract form, but at the same time they express also the Things-in-themselves. Nature is both concrete and abstract, both phenomenon and essence, both mo- ment _and_relation. Human concepts are subjective in their abstractness, sepa- rateness, but objective as a whole, in the process, in the sum-total, in the tendency, in the source.
Very good is § 225 of the Encyclopae- dia where “_cognition_” (“theoretical”) and “will,” “practical activity,” are depicted as two sides, two methods, two means of abolishing the “one-sidedness” both of subjectivity and of objectivity.
And further 281-282 very important on the transition of the categories into one another (and against Kant, p. 282). NB
Logic, Vol. V, p. 282 (the end)[60] ...“Kant ... takes up the determinate connection (the relation-notions and the
synthetic principles themselves) from for- mal logic as given. They ought to have been deduced by the exposition of the transition of this simple unity of self-con- sciousness into these its determinations and distinctions; but Kant spared himself the trouble of demonstrating this veritably synthetic progress, that of the self- producing Notion.” (282)
Kant did not show the transi- tion of the categories into one another.
286-287—Turning once more to higher mathematics (showing, inter alia, that he is familiar with Gauss’ solution of the equation Xm—1=0[61], Hegel again touches on the differential and integral calculus, and says that:
“to this day mathematics by itself, that is, in a mathematical manner, has failed in justifying these operations, which are based upon this transition” (from one mag- nitude to another), “for the transition is not of a mathematical nature.” Hegel says that Leibnitz, to whom is ascribed the hon- our of having discovered the differential calculus, effected this transition “in a most inadequate manner, a manner both thor- oughly notionless and unmathematical....” (287)
“Analytic cognition is the first premise of the whole syllogism,—the immediate relation of the Notion to the Object. Con- sequently, identity is the determination which it recognises as its own: it is only the apprehension of what is. Synthetic Cognition endeavours to form a Notion of what is, that is, to grasp the multiplic- ity of determinations in its unity. Hence it is the second premise of the syllogism in which terms various as such are related. Its goal is therefore necessity in general.” (288) Regarding the practice in certain scien- ces (e.g., physics) of taking various “for- ces,” etc., for “explanation,” and of pulling in (stretching), adjusting the facts, etc., Hegel makes the following clever remark: “It is now seen that the so-called expla- nation and proof of the concrete element which is brought into Propositions is partly
a tautology and partly a confusion of the true relationship; partly, too, it is seen that this confusion served to disguise the trick of Cognition, which takes up the data of experience one-sidedly (the only manner remarkably correct and profound
in which it could reach its simple defini- tions and formulas), and does away with refutation from experience by proposing and taking as valid experience not in its concrete totality but as example, and only in that direction which is serviceable for the hypotheses and the theory. Concrete experience being thus subordinated to the presupposed determinations, the foundation of the theory is obscured, and is exhibited only from that side which is in conformity with the theory.” (315-316) (c.f. the polit- ical econo- my of the bourgeoisie) against sub- jectivism and one-sidedness
The old metaphysics (e.g., of Wolff [example: ridiculous pomposity over tri- vialities, etc.]) was overthrown by Kant and Jacobi. Kant showed that “strict de- monstration” led to antimonies, “but he” (Kant) “did not reflect upon the nature of this demonstration, which is bound to a finite content; yet the two stand and fall together.” (317) i.e., Kant did not un- derstand the universal
Synthetic cognition is still not complete, for “the Notion does not become unity with law of the dialectics of
itself in its object or its reality.... Hence in this Cognition the Idea does not yet reach truth because of the inadequacy of the object to the subjective Notion.—But the sphere of Necessity is the highest the “Finite”?
point of Being and of Reflection; in and for itself it passes over into the freedom of the Notion, while the inner identity passes over into its manifestation, which is the Notion as Notion....”
...“The Idea, insofar as the Notion is now for itself the Notion determinate in and for itself, is the Practical Idea, or Action.” (319) And the following § is headed “B: The Idea of the Good.”
Theoretical cognition ought to give the object in its necessity, in its all- sided relations, in its contradictory mo- vement, an-und für-sich.[62] But the human notion “definitively” catches this object- ive truth of cognition, seizes and masters it, only when the notion becomes “being- for-itself” in the sense of practice. That is, the practice of man and of mankind is the test, the criterion of the object- ivity of cognition. Is that Hegel’s idea? It is necessary to return to this. Hegel on practice and the objectiv- ity of cog- nition
Why is the transition from practice, from action, only to the “good,” das Gute? That is narrow, one-sided! And the useful? There is no doubt the useful also comes in. Or is this, according to Hegel, also das Gute?
All this in the chapter “The Idea of Cognition” (Chapter II)—in the tran- sition to the “Absolute Idea” (Chapter III)—i.e., undoubtedly, in Hegel prac- tice serves as a link in the analysis of the process of cognition, and indeed as the transition to objective (“abso- lute,” according to Hegel) truth. Marx, consequently, clearly sides with Hegel in introducing the criterion of practice into the theory of knowledge: see the Theses on Feuerbach.[63]
Practice in the theory of knowledge: Alias: Man’s consciousness not only reflects the ob- jective world, but cre- ates it.
(320) “As subjective It” (der Begriff) “has again the presupposition of an other- ness which is in itself; it is the impulse to realise itself, or the end which tries to give itself objectivity in the objective world, and to car- ry itself out, through itself. In the Theoretical Idea the subjective Notion stands op- posed, as the universal which is indeterminate in and for itself, to the ob- jective world, from which it draws determinate con- tent and fulfilment. But in the Practical Idea it stands opposed as actual to the actual. But the self-certain- ty which the subject has in the fact of its deter- minateness in and for itself, is a certainty of its own actuality and of the non- actuality of the world;....” ...... The notion (= man), as subjective, again presup- posed an otherness which is in itself (= nature inde- pendent of man). This no- tion (= man) is the im- pulse to realise itself, to give itself objectivity in the objective world through itself, and to realise (ful- fil) itself. In the theoretical idea (in the sphere of theory) the subjective notion (cog- nition?), as the universal and in and for itself inde- terminate, stands opposed to the objective world, from which it obtains determi- nate content and fulfilment. In the practical idea (in the sphere if practice) this notion as the actual (act- ing?) stands opposed to the actual. The self-certainty which the subject [[here sudden-
ly instead of “Notion”]] has in its being in and for it- self, as a determinate sub- ject, is a certainty of its own actuality and of the non-actuality of the world.
i.e., that the world does not satisfy man and man decides to change it by his activity.
...“This determinateness, which is contained in the Notion, and is equal to it, and includes within itself the demand of the individ- ual external actuality, is the Good. It appears with The essence: The “good” is a “demand of external actuality,” i.e., by the “good” is understood man’s practice = the de- mand (1) also of external actuality (2).
the dignity of absoluteness, because it is the totality of the Notion within itself— the objective in the form simultaneously of free unity
and subjectivity. This Idea is higher than the Idea of Cognition which has already been consid- ered, for it has not only the dignity of the universal but also of the simply ac- tual....” (320-321) Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of univer- sality, but also of immedi- ate actuality.
...“Consequently, the ac- tivity of the end is not di- rected against itself, for the purpose of absorbing and assimilating a given deter- mination; it aims rather at positing its own determi- nation, and, by transcend- ing the determinations of “The activity of the end is not directed against it- self.... but aims, by destroying definite (sides, features, phenomena) of the exter- nal world, at giving itself reality in the form of ex- ternal actuality....”
the external world, at giv- ing itself reality in the form of external actuality....” (321)
...“The realised Good is good by virtue of what it is already in the Subjective End, in its Idea; realisation gives it an external existence....” (322). “Presupposed to it (the Good) is the objective world, in the presupposition of which the subjectivity and finitude of the Good consists and which, as being other, pursues its own course; and in it even the realisation of the Good is exposed to obstacles, and may even be made impossible....” + (322-323) ...“Pre- supposed to it (the Good) is the objective world, in the pre- supposition of which the subjectivity and finitude of the Good consists and which, as being other, pursues its own course; and in it even the realisation of the Good is exposed to obstacles, and may even be made impossible.....+ (322-323)
NB NB The “objective world” “pursues its own course, and man’s practice, confronted by this objective world, encounters “obstacles in the realisation” of the End, even “impossibility....”
+ ...“Thus the Good remains an Ought; it is in and for itself, but Being, as last and abstract immediacy, remains determined against it as a not-Being too....”++ (323)
The Good, welfare, well-meaning aspirations, remain a SUBJECTIVE OUGHT....
++ ...“Although the Idea of the perfected
Good is an absolute postulate, it is no more than a postulate,—that is, the absolute infected with the determinateness of
Two worlds: subjective subjectivity. There are still two worlds in opposition: one a realm of subjec-
and objective tivity in the pure spaces of trans- parent thought, the other a realm of objectivity in the element of an exter- nally manifold actuality, which is an unexplored realm of darkness. The com- plete development of the unresolved con-
tradiction, of that absolute end which the barrier of this actuality insuperably op- poses, has been considered more closely in Phänomenologie des Geistes, p. 453 et seq....” (323)
A gibe at the pure “spaces of transparent thought” in the realm of subjectivity, which is confronted by the “darkness” of “objective,” “manifold” actuality. NB
...“In the latter” (= der theoretischen Idee[64] in contrast to der praktischen Idee[65]) ...“Cognition knows itself only as appre- hension, as the self-identity of the No- tion, which for itself is indeterminate; fulfilment, that is, objectivity determined in and for itself, is given to it, and that which truly is is the actuality that is
present independently of subjective positing. The Practical Idea on the other
hand counts this actuality (which at the same time opposes it as an insuperable barrier) as that which in and for itself is null, which is to receive its true deter- mination and sole value through the ends of the Good. Will itself consequently bars
the way to its own goal insofar as it separates itself from Cognition and external actuality does not, for it, retain the form of that which truly
is; consequently the Idea of the Good can find its complement only in the Idea of the True.” (323-324)
Cognition ... finds itself faced by that which truly is as actuality present independently of subjective opinions (Setzen[66]). (This is pure materi- alism!) Man’s will, his practice, itself blocks the attainment of its end ...in that it separates itself from cog- nition and does not recognise external actuality for that which truly is (for objective truth). What is necessary is the union of cognition and practice. Nota bene
And immediately following this: “But it makes this transition through
itself” (the transition of the idea of truth into the idea of the Good, of theory into practice, and vice versa). “In the syllo- gism of action one premise is the immediate
relation of the good end to actuality, of which it makes itself master, directing it (in the second premise) as external means against external actuality.” (324)
NB NB The “syllogism of action” ... For He- gel action, practice, is a logical “syllogism,” a figure of logic. And that is true! Not of course, in the sense that the figure of logic has its other being in the practice of man (=abso- lute idealism), but vice versa: man’s practice, repeating itself a thousand million times, becomes consolidated in man’s consciousness by figures of logic. Precisely (and only) on account of this thousand-million-fold repetition, these figures have the stability of a preju- dice, an axiomatic character. First premise: The good end (subjective end) versus actuality (“external actuality”). Second premise: The external means (in- strument), (objective). Third premise or conclusion: The coin- cidence of subjective and objective, the test of subjective ideas, the criterion of objective truth.
...“The realisation of the Good in the teeth of an opposing and other actuality is the mediation which is essential for the immediate relation and actualisation of the Good....” (325) ...“If now in spite of this” (through activ- ity) “the end of the Good should not be realised, then this is a relapse of the Notion to the standpoint which the Notion has before its activity—the standpoint of that actuality which was determined as null and yet was presupposed as real. This relapse becomes a progress to bad infin- ity; it has its only ground in the fact that in the transcendence of this abstract
reality the transcendence is equally imme- diately forgotten, or that it is forgotten that this reality has already been presup- posed as non-objective actuality which is null in and for itself.” (325)
NB: The non-fulfilment of ends (of human activity) has as its cause (Grund) the fact that reality is taken as non-existent (nichtig), that its (reality’s) objective actuality is not being recognised.
“By the activity of the objective No- tion external actuality is altered, and its determination is accordingly transcended; and by this very process it loses merely apparent reality, external determinability, and nullity, and it is thus posited as being in and for itself....” (326) +
NB The activity of man, who has constructed an objective picture of the world for himself, changes external actuality, abolishes its determinateness (= alters some sides or other, qualities, of it),
NB and thus removes from it the fea- tures of Semblance, externality and nullity, and makes it as being in and for itself (= objectively true).
+ ...Presupposition in general is here transcended,—that is, the determination
of the Good as an end which is merely subjective and restricted in its content,
the necessity of realising it by subjective activity, and this activity itself. In the result mediation transcends itself; the result is an immediacy which is not the reconstitution of the presupposition but rather the fact of its transcendedness. The Idea of the Notion which is determined in and for itself is thus posited no longer merely in the active subject, but equally
as an immediate actuality; and the latter conversely is posited as it is in Cogni- tion, as objectivity which truly is." (326)

The results of activity is the test of subjective cognition
and the criterion of OBJECTIVITY WHICH TRULY IS.

...“In this result then Cognition is re-
constructed and united with the Practical Idea; the actuality which is found as given is at the same time determined
as the realised absolute end,—not however (as in inquiring Cognition) merely as ob- jective world without the subjectivity of the Notion, but as objective world whose inner ground and actual persistence is the Notion. This is the Absolute Idea.” (327) ((End of Chapter II. Transition to Chap- ter III: “The Absolute Idea.”)) Chapter III: “The Absolute Idea.” (327) ...“The Absolute Idea has turned out to be the identity of the Theoretical and the Practical Idea; .each of these by itself is one-sided....” (327)
The unity of the theoretical idea (of knowledge) _and of practice_—this NB—and this unity precisely in the theory of knowledge, for the resulting sum is the “absolute idea” (and the idea = “das objektive Wahre”[67])
What remains to be considered is no lon- ger Inhalt,[68] but ...“the universal element of its form—that is, the method.” (329) “In inquiring cognition the method is likewise in the position, of a tool, of a means which stands on the subjective side, whereby the subjective side relates itself to the object.... But in true cognition the meth- od is not merely a quantity of certain determinations; it is the fact that the No- tion is determined in and for itself, and is the middle member” (in the logical figure of the syllogism) “only because it equally has the significance of objective....” (331) ...“The absolute method” (i.e., the meth- od of cognition of objective truth) “on the other hand does not behave as exter- nal reflection; it draws the determinate element directly from its object itself, since it is the object’s immanent principle and soul.—It was this that Plato demanded
of cognition, that it should consider things in and for themselves, and that while part- ly considering them in their universality it should also hold fast to them, not catch- ing at externals, examples and compari- sons, but contemplating the things alone and bringing before consciousness what is immanent in them....” (335-336)
This method of “absolute cognition” is ana- lytic... “but equally it is _synthetic_” (336)
One of the defini- tions of dialectics “Dieses so sehr synthetische als analy- tische Moment des Urteils, wodurch das anfängliche Allgemeine aus ihm selbst als das Andere Seiner sich bestimmt, ist das _dialektische zu nennen_” ... (336) (+ see the next page).[69] →
“This equally synthetic and analytic moment of the Judgment, by which (the moment) the original universality [gen- eral concept] determines itself out of itself as other in relation to itself, must be called dialectical.”
[Back to top] A determination which is not a clear one![70] 1) The determination of the concept out of itself [the thing itself must be consid- ered in its relations and in its develop- ment]; 2) the contradictory nature of the thing itself (das Andere seiner[71]), the contra- dictory forces and tendencies in each phe- nomenon; 3) the union of analysis and synthesis. Such apparently are the elements of dialectics. One could perhaps present these ele- ments in greater detail as follows:
Elements of dialec- tics the objectivity of consideration (not examples, not divergencies, but the Thing-in-itself). X the entire totality of the manifold relations of this thing to others. the development of this thing, (phenomenon, respectively), its own movement, its own life. the internally contradictory tenden- cies (and sides) in this thing. the thing (phenomenon, etc.) as the sum and # unity of opposites. the struggle, respectively unfold- ing, of these opposites, contradictory strivings, etc. the union of analysis and synthesis— the break-down of the separate parts and the totality, the summation of these parts. the relations of each thing (phenome- non, etc.) are not only manifold, but general, universal. Each thing (phe- nomenon, process, etc.) is connected with every other. X not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every de- termination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]. the endless process of the discovery of new sides, relations, etc. the endless process of the deepening of man’s knowledge of the thing, of phenomena, processes, etc., from ap- pearance to essence and from less pro- found to more profound essence. from co-existence to causality and from one form of connection and reciprocal dependence to another, deeper, more general form. the repetition at a higher stage of certain features, properties, etc., of the lower and the apparent return to the old (nega- tion of the negation). the struggle of content with form and conversely. The throwing off of the form, the transformation of the con- tent. the transition of quantity into quality and vice versa ((15 and 16 are examples of 9))

In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of
the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence
of dialectics, but it requires explanations and develop-
ment.

+ (continuation. See the previous page.[72]) ←...“Dialectics is one of those ancient sciences which has been most misjudged in modern metaphysics [here obviously = the- ory of knowledge and logic] and in the popular philosophy of ancients and mod-
Plato and dialectics erns alike....” (336) Diogenes Laertius said of Plato that he was the father of dialectics, the third philosophical science (as Thales was the father of natural phi- losophy and Socrates of moral philoso-
phy), but that those who are particularly loud in talking about this merit of Plato’s give little thought to it....
The objec- tivity of dialectics ...“Dialectics has often been considered an art, as though it rested upon a sub- jective talent and did not belong to the objectivity of the Notion....” (336-337)
It is an important merit of Kant’s to have re-introduced dialectics, to have recognised it as “necessary” (a property) “;of reason” (337) but the result (of the application of dialectics) must be “opposite” (to Kant- ianism). See below.
There follows a very interesting, clear and important outline of dialectics. ...“Besides generally appearing as con- tingent, dialectics usually has this more detailed form, that when in respect of any particular object, e.g., the world, mo- tion, point, etc., it is shown that it has any particular determination—e.g. (in the order of the above-mentioned objects) finitude in space or time, presence at this place, absolute negation of space— it is, however, shown further that it has with equal necessity the opposite deter- mination, e.g., infinity in space and time, non-presence at this place, and a rela- tion to space, consequently spatiality. The
older Eleatic school applied its dialec- tics chiefly against motion; Plato frequent- ly against contemporary ideas and con- cepts (especially those of the Sophists), from the history of dialectics
but also against pure categories and re-
flection-determinations; the developed lat- er scepticism extended it not only to the immediate so-called data of conscious- ness and maxims of ordinary life, but the role of scepticism in the history of dialectics
also to all the concepts of science. The conclusion which is drawn from such dia- lectics is contradiction and the nullity of the assertions made. But it may occur in a double sense,—in the objective sense, the object which thus contradicts itself being held to cancel itself and to be null (—this was, for instance, the Eleatic con- clusion, by which, for example, the world, motion, and the point were deprived of truth), or in the subjective sense, cogni-
tion being held to be defective. The latter conclusion is sometimes understood to mean that it is only this dialectics that effects the trick of an illusive show. This is the dialectics is understood to be a trick
ordinary view of so called sound common sense, which holds fast to the evidence of the senses and to customary ideas and expressions....” (337-338) Diogenes the Dog,[73] for example, proved movement by walking up and down, “a vulgar refutation” (338), says Hegel.
Kantian- ism = (also) scepticism ...“Or again the result reached—that of subjective nullity—relates, not to the dia- lectic itself, but rather to the cognition against which it is directed, and in the sense of scepticism and likewise of the Kantian philosophy, to cognition in gener-
al....” (338)
“The fundamental prejudice here is that the dialectic has only a negative re- sult,” (338)
Among other things, it is said that it is a merit of Kant’s to have drawn attention to dialectics and to the con- sideration “of the determinations of thought in and for themselves” (339)
That is cor- rect! Image and thought, “The object in its existence without thought and Notion is an image or a name: it is what it is in the determinations of thought and Notion....”
the develop- ment of both, nil aliud[74]
The object manifests itself as dialectical ...“It must not therefore be considered the fault of an object, or of cognition, that they manifest themselves as dialectical by their nature and by an external connection....”
Concepts are not immobile but—in and for them- selves, by their na- ture = transition ...“Thus all opposites which are taken as fixed, such as, for example, finite and infinite, or individual and universal, are contradictory not by virtue of some exter- nal connection, but rather are transitions in and for themselves, as the considera- tion of their nature showed....” (339)

| “Now this is the standpoint which was referred to above, in which a universal # first term considered in and for itself shows itself to be its own Other....” (340) | # The first uni- versal con- cept (also = the first encountered, universal concept) | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ...“But the Other is essentially not the | This is very | | | | | | empty negative or Nothing which is com- monly taken as the result of dialec- tics, it is the Other of the first, the negative | important for understand- ing | | | | | | of the immediate; it is thus determined | dialectics | | | | | | as mediated,—and altogether contains the determination of the first. The first is thus essentially contained and preserved in the Other.—To hold fast the positive in its neg- | | | | | | | ative, and the content of the presupposition | | | | | | | in the result, is the most important part of rational cognition; also only the simplest reflection is needed to furnish conviction of the absolute truth and necessity of this requirement, while with regard to the examples of proofs, the whole of Logic consists of these.” (340) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Not empty negation, not futile negation, not scepti- cal negation, vacillation and doubt is characteristic and essential in dialectics,—which undoubtedly contains the element of negation and indeed as its most important element — no, as a moment of development, retaining the positive, i.e., without any vacillations, without any eclecticism. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Dialectics consists in general in the ne- gation of the first proposition, in its re- placement by a second (in the transition of the first into the second, in the demon- stration of the connection of the first with the second, etc.). The second can be made the predicate of the first— | | | | | | | — “for example, the finite is infinite, one is many, the individual is the universal....” (341) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ...“The first or immediate term is the No- | | | | | | | “in itself_” = potentially, not yet de- veloped, not yet unfolded | tion in itself, and therefore is the nega- tive only in itself; the dialectical moment with it therefore consists in this, that the distinction which it implicitly contains is posited in it. The second term on the other hand is itself the determinate en- | | | | | | tity, the distinction or relation; hence with it the dialectical moment consists in the positing of the unity which is contained in it....”— (341-342) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (In relation to the simple and origi- nal, “first,” positive assertions, proposi- tions, etc., the “dialectical moment”, i.e., scientific consideration, demands the dem- onstration of difference, connection, tran- sition. Without that the simple positive assertion is incomplete, lifeless, dead. In relation to the “second,” negative propo- sition, the “dialectical moment” demands the demonstration of “_unity,” i.e., of the connection of negative and positive, the presence of this positive in the nega- tive. From assertion to negation—from negation to “unity” with the asserted— without this dialectics becomes empty ne- gation, a game, scepsis.) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ... —“If then the negative, the deter- minate, the relation, judgment, and all determinations which fall under this sec- ond moment, do not of themselves appear as contradictory and dialectical, this is a mere fault of thought which does not confront its thoughts one with another. For the materials—opposite determinations in _one relation_—are posited already and are at hand for thought. But formal thought makes identity its law, and allows the contradictory content which lies before it | | | | | | | to drop into the sphere of sensuous repre- sentation, into space and time, where the contradictory terms are held apart in spa- tial and temporal juxtaposition and thus come before consciousness without mu- tual contact.” (342) | NB | | | | | | | | | | | | | “Come before consciousness without mutual contact” (the object)—that is the essence of anti-dialectics. It is only here that Hegel has, as it were, allowed the ass’s ear of idealism to show them- selves—by referring time and space (in connection with sensuous representation) to something lower compared with thought. Incidentally, in a certain sense, sensuous representation is, of course, lower. The crux lies in the fact that thought must apprehend the whole “re- presentation” in its movement, but for that thought must be dialectical. Is sensuous representation closer to reality than thought? Both yes and no. Sensuous representation cannot, appre- hend movement as a whole, it can- not, for example, apprehend movement with a speed of 300,000 km. per second, but thought does and must apprehend it. Thought, taken from sensuous representa- tion, also reflects reality; time is a form of being of objective reality. Here, in the concept of time (and not in the relation of sensuous representation to thought) is the idealism of Hegel. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ...“In this connection this thought[75] makes it its fixed principle that contradic- tion is unthinkable; but in truth the think- ing of contradiction is the essential mo- ment of the Notion; in point of fact formal thought does think contradiction, but im- mediately disregards it, and with the asser- tion of that principle” (the statement that contradiction is unthinkable) “passes over to abstract negation.” (342) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “The negativity which has just been considered is the turning-point of the movement of the Notion. It is the simple | | | | | | | the kernel of dialectics | point of negative self-relation, the inter- nal source of all activity, vital and spirit- ual self-movement, the dialectic soul which | | | | | | all truth has in it and through which it | | | | | | | the criterion of truth (the unity of the con- cept and | alone is truth; for the transcendence of the opposition between the Notion and Reality, and that unity which is the truth, rest upon this subjectivity alone.—The second negative, the negative of the neg- | | | | | | reality) | ative, which we have reached, is this | | | | | | transcendence of the contradiction, but is no more the activity of an external reflec- tion than the contradiction is; it is the in- nermost and most objective moment of Life and Spirit, by virtue of which a subject, the person, the free, has being.” (342-343) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Important here is 1) the char- acterisation of dialectics: self-move- ment, the source of activity, the movement of life and spirit; the coincidence of the concepts of the subject (man) with reality; 2) ob- jectivism to the highest degree (“der objektivste Moment”[76]). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | This negation of the negation is the third term, says Hegel (343)—“if number is applicable”—but it can also be taken as the fourth (Quadruplicität[77]), (344) counting two negations: the “simple” (or “formal”) and the “absolute.” (343 i.f.) | | | | | | | The difference is not clear to me, is not the absolu- te equivalent to the more concrete? | | | | | | | “That this unity, as well as the whole form of the method, is a triplicity is wholly, however, the merely superficial and ex- ternal side of the manner of cognition” (344) | NB: the “triplici- ty” of dialec- tics is its external su- perficial side | | | | | | —but, he says, that is already “an infi- nite merit of Kant’s philosophy” that it at least (even if ohne Begriff[78]) demon- strated this. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “Formalists, it is true, have also seized upon triplicity, and have held fast to its empty framework; and this form has been rendered tedious and of ill-repute by the shallow misuse and the barrenness of mod- ern so-called philosophic construction, which consists simply in attaching the for- mal framework without concept and im- manent determination to all sorts of mat- ter and employing it for external arrange- ment. But its inner value cannot be dimin- ished by this vapid misuse, and it must still be deemed of high value that the out- ward form of the rational has been dis- covered, albeit not understood.” (344-345) | Hegel sav- agely attacks formalism, tedious and idle play with dialectics | | | | | | | | | | | | | The result of the negation of the nega- | | | | | | | tion, this third term is “not a qui- escent third term, but, as this unity” (of contradictions), “is self-mediating movement and activity....” (345) The result of this dialectical transforma- tion into the “third” term, into the synthe- sis, is a new premise, assertion, etc., which in turn becomes the source of a further analysis. But into it, into this “third” stage has already entered the “_content_” of cognition (“the content of cognition as such enters within the sphere of contempla- tion”) — and the method is extended into a system. (346) The beginning of all consideration, of the whole analysis—this first premise— now appears indeterminate, “imperfect”; the need arises to prove, “derive” (ablei- ten) (347) it and it turns out that “this may seem equivalent to the demand for an infinite backward progress in proof and derivation” (347)—but, on the other hand, the new premise drives forward.... ...“Thus, cognition rolls forward from con- tent to content. This progress determines itself, first, in this manner, that it be- gins from simple determinatenesses and that each subsequent one is richer and more concrete. For the result contains its own beginning, and the development of the beginning has made it the richer by a new determinateness. The universal is the foundation; the progress therefore must not be taken as a flow from Other to Other. In the absolute method the Notion pre- serves itself in its otherness, and the uni- versal in its particularisation, in the Judg- ment and in reality; it raises to each next stage of determination the whole mass of its antecedent content, and by its dialec- tical progress not only loses nothing and leaves nothing behind, but carries with it all that it has acquired, enriching and concentrating itself upon itself....” (349) (This extract is not at all bad as a kind of summing up of dialectics.) But expansion requires also deepening | | | | | | | (“_In-sich-gehen_”[79]) “ and greater extension is also higher intensity.” (349) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “The richest consequently is also the most concrete and subjective, and that which carries itself back into the simplest depth is also the most powerful and com- prehensive.” (349) | This NB: The richest is the most concrete and most subjec- tive | | | | | | “In this manner it comes about that each step in the progress of further determi- nation in advancing from the indetermi- nate beginning is also a rearward approach to it, so that two processes which may at first appear to be different (the regres- sive confirmation of the beginning and its progressive further determination) coincide and are the same.” (350) It is impermissible deprezieren[80] this indeterminate beginning: | | | | | | | “It requires no apology that it” (the beginning) “may be admitted mere- ly as provisional and hypothetical. Any objections which might be advanced— about the limits of human cognition, or the need of a critical investigation of the instrument of cognition before the prob- lem is attacked—are themselves supposi- | NB: Hegel against Kant | | | | | | | tions which, as concrete determinations, imply the need for their mediation and proof. Formally then they are no better than that beginning against which they | | | | | | | | protest, and rather require a derivation by reason of their more concrete content; so that it is sheer presumption to demand | | | | | | | | that they should have preferential consid- eration. Their content is untrue, for they | | ↓ | | | | | | make incontrovertible and absolute what is known to be finite and untrue (namely, | | | | | | | a restricted cognition which is determined as form and instrument as against its | | | | | | | against Kant (correct) | content); and this untrue cognition is it- self form and regressive confirmation.— The method of truth too knows the begin- ning to be incomplete because it is be- ginning, but also knows this incomplete term in general as necessary, because truth is only the coming to itself through the negativity of immediacy....” (350-351) | | | | | | | | | | | | | Science is a circle of circles NB: the con- nection of the dialectical method with “erfülltes Sein”[81] with Being that is full of con- tent and concrete | ...“By reason of the nature of the method which has been demonstrated, science is seen to be a circle which returns upon it- self, for mediation bends back its end into its beginning, simple ground. Further, this circle is a circle of circles.... The various sciences ... are fragments of this chain....” (351) “The method is the pure Notion which is related only to itself; it is therefore the simple self-relation which is Being. But now it is also Being fulfilled, the self- comprehending Notion, Being as the con- crete and also thoroughly intensive to- tality....”(352) | | | | | | ...“Secondly, this Idea” ((die Idee des absoluten Erkennens[82])) “still is logical, it is enveloped in pure thought, and is the science only of the divine Notion. The systematic development is itself a real- isation, but is maintained within the same sphere. Since the pure Idea of Cogni- tion is to that extent enclosed in subjectiv- ity, it is an impulse to transcend the latter, and pure truth, as the last result, also | | | | | | | becomes the beginning of another sphere and science. This transition need here only be intimated. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “For the Idea posits itself as the abso- lute unity of the pure Notion and its Reality, and thus gathers itself into the immediacy of Being; and in doing so, as totality in this form, it is Nature.” (352-353) | Transition from the Idea to Na- ture... | | | | | | | | | | | |

This sentence on the last (353) page of the Logic is highly noteworthy. The tran- sition of the logical idea to nature. It brings one within a hand’s grasp of mate- rialism. Engels was right[83] when he said that Hegel’s system was materialism turned upside down. This is not the last sen- tence of the Logic, but what comes after it to the end of the page is unimportant. End of the Logic. 17.XII.1914. NB: In the small Logic (Ency- clopaedia, Par. 244, Zusatz[84] p.414 [85] the last sen- tence of the book reads: “diese seiende Idee aber ist die Natur”[86]
It is noteworthy that the whole chapter on the “Absol- ute Ideas” scarcely says a word about God (hardly ever has a “divine” “notion” slipped out accidentally) and apart from that—_this NB_—it contains almost nothing that is specifically idealism, but has for its main subject the dialectical method. The sum- total, the last word and essence of Hegel’s logic is the _dialectical method_—this is extremely noteworthy. And one thing more: in this most idealistic of Hegel’s works there is the least idealism and the most materialism. “Contradictory,” but a fact! NB

Vol. VI, p. 399[87]

The Encyclopaedia § 227—excellent on the analytical method (to “analyse” the “Given concrete” phenomenon—“to give the
NB: “genus, or force and law” (genus = law) form of abstraction” to its individual aspects and “herausheben” “to bring into relief”—“the genus, or force and law” p. 398—and on its application:
It is not at all “an arbitrary matter” (398) whether we apply the analytical or the synthetical method (as man pflegt zu sprech- en[88])—“it is the form of the very objects that have to be cognised upon which it depends” (399) Locke and the empiricists adopt the standpoint of analysis. And they often say that “in general cognition cannot do more.” (398) “It is, however, at once apparent that
Quite correct Cf. Marx’s remark in Capital, I, 5, 2[89] this turns things upside down, and that cognition which wishes to take things as they are thereby falls into contradiction with itself.” The chemist, for example, “martert”[90] a piece of flesh and discovers
in it nitrogen, carbon, etc. “But then these abstract substances have ceased to be flesh.” There can be many definitions, for ob- jects have many aspects. “The richer the object to be defined, i.e., the more numerous the aspects which it offers to one’s notice, the more various also are the definitions framed from them” (400 § 229)—for example, the definition of life, of the state, etc. In their definitions, Spinoza and Schel- ling present a mass of “speculation” (Hegel here obviously uses this word in the good sense) but “in the form of assurances.” Philosophy, however, must prove and de- rive everything, and not limit itself to definitions. Division (Einteilung) must be “natural and not merely artificial, i.e., arbitrary.” (401) Pp. 403-404— anger at “construction” and the “play” of construing, whereas it is a question of the Begriff, the “Idee,” of “Ein- heit des Begriffs und der Objektivität....”[91] (403) In the small Encyclopaedia § 233, section b is entitled das Wollen[92] (which in the large Logic is “Die Idee des Guten”[93]). Activity is a “contradiction”—the pur- pose is real and not real, possible and not ... etc. “Formally, however, the disappearance of this contradiction consists in activity abolishing the subjectivity of the pur- pose and along with it the objectivity, the opposite, in virtue of which both are finite, and abolishing not merely the one-sidedness of this subjectivity, but the subjectivity as a whole” (406). The standpoint of Kant and Fichte (es- pecially in moral philosophy) is the stand- point of purpose, of subjective ought (407) (without connection with the objective).... Speaking of the Absolute Idea, Hegelridicules (§ 237, Vol. VI, p. 409) “decla- mation” over it, as if everything were revealed in it, and he remarks that “the absolute idea” ... is ... “the univer- sal,” “but the universal not merely as ab- stract form, to which (sic!) the particular content stands contrasted as an Other,
très bien! A beautiful comparison! Instead of banal reli- gion, one must take all kinds of ab- stract truths but as the absolute form into which all determinations, the whole fullness of the content posited by it, have retreated. In this respect the absolute idea can be com- pared to an old man, who utters the same statements of religion as a child, but for whom they have the significance of his whole lifetime. Even if the child under- stands the religious content, it is for him still only something outside of which the whole of life and the whole of the world lie.” (410)
excellent! ...“The interest lies in the whole move- ment....” (§ 237, 409)
...“The content is the living develop- ment of the idea....” “Each of the stages hitherto reviewed is an image of the ab- solute, but at first in a limited way....” (401) § 238 Addendum: “The philosophical method is both ana- lytical and synthetical, but not in the sense of a bare juxtaposition or a mere alternation of these two methods of finite cognition, but rather in such a way that it holds them transcended in itself, and
très bien in everyone of its movements, there- fore, it proves itself simultaneously ana- lytical and synthetical. Philosophical
thought proceeds analytically, insofar as it
very good! (and graphic) only accepts its object, the Idea, allows the latter its own way and, as it were, only looks on at its movement and de- velopment. To this extent philosophising is wholly passive. Philosophic thought,
however, is equally synthetic and shows itself to be the activity of the Notion itself. That, however, involves the effort to re- frain from our own fancies and private opinions, which always seek to obtrude themselves....” (411) (§ 243, p. 413)... “Thus the method is not an external form, but the soul and notion of the content....” (End of the Encyclopaedia; see above on the side the extract from the end of Log- ic.[94])

Notes

[1] previous works—Ed.

[2] “ossified material”—Ed.

[3] “to render fluid”—Ed.

[4] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834.—Ed.

[5] of the Notion—Ed.

[6] in fine—at the end—Ed.

[7] “to speak ill” of imagination and memory—Ed.

[8] “the summit of thought”—Ed.

[9] “the incomprehensible_”—_Ed.

[10] truth—Ed.

[11] sensation and intuition—Ed.

[12] See F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 371).

[13] constitutive—Ed.

[14] objective—Ed.

[15] dispenses with the material of sensuousness—Ed.

[16] constitutive_—_Ed.

[17] “formal science”—Ed.

[18] “pure truth”—Ed.

[19] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[20] the logical forms—Ed.

[21] “adequate notion”—Ed.

[22] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834.—Ed.

[23] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834.—Ed.

[24] Lenin wrote this in English.—Ed.

[25] That’s what is needed!—Ed.

[26] notion-determinations—Ed.

[27] “otiose form”—Ed.

[28] If I may be allowed to say so.—Ed.

[29] individual—Ed.

[30] particular—Ed.

[31] universal—Ed.

[32] Chapter I of Capital—Ed.

[33] to be inverted—Ed.

[34] from the threshold—Ed.

[35] Apparently the preposition “to” before the word “syllogism” is omitted.—Ed.

[36] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[37] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[38] The word “logic” in the manuscript is linked to the word “here” in the following quotation from Hegel.—Ed.

[39] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834.—Ed.

[40] of objective totality—Ed.

[41] “natural necessity”—Ed.

[42] the End—Ed.

[43] vulgar—Ed.

[44] “beyond”—Ed.

[45] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[46] existing specially for themselves.—Ed.

[47] the understanding—Ed.

[48] false_—_Ed.

[49] A critique of the metaphysical views of the Machist V.Chernov is presented by Lenin in his book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (see V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Moscow, 1960).

[50] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834.—Ed.

[51] essentially is in cognition_—_Ed.

[52] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.——Ed.

[53] Hegel, Werke, Bd. V, Berlin, 1834, pp. 248-262.—Ed.

[54] “in itself” and “for itself”!!!—Ed.

[55] the Notions—Ed.

[56] abstract one-sided determinations of “former—pre-Kantian—metaphysics”—Ed.

[57] everything empirical—Ed.

[58] Thing-in-itself—Ed.

[59] “Beyond”—Ed.

[60] At this point Lenin’s manuscript continues in the notebook “Hegel. Logic. Section III”—Ed.

[61] The solution of this equation was given by Gauss in his work Diisquisitiones arithmeticae (Arithmetical Studies), 1801.

[62] in and for itself—Ed.

[63] Lenin is referring to Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach,” written in 1845 and published by Engels in 1888 as an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (see Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 403-405).

[64] the Theoretical Idea—Ed.

[65] the Practical Idea—Ed.

[66] positing—Ed.

[67] “the objectivly true”—Ed.

[68] content—Ed.

[69] In the manuscript, there is an arrow from the parenthesis pointing to the paragraph: “Dialectics is...,” located on the following page of the manuscript. (See p. 223 of this volume.)—Ed.

[70] This section is known as Lenin’s “Summary of Dialectics,” and also exists in the Lenin Internet Archive on a separate page paired with Lenin’s “On the Question of Dialectics”—KCG, 2007.

[71] the other of itself—Ed.

[72] See p. 220 of this volume.—Ed.

[73] The reference is to Diogenes of Sinope, a representative of the Cynic school who was nicknamed the “Dog,” probably because of his beggarly life and disregard for public morals.

[74] noting else—Ed.

[75] formal thought—Ed.

[76] “the most objective moment”—Ed.

[77] quadruplicity—Ed.

[78] without any concept—Ed.

[79] Going into itself_—_Ed.

[80] to depreciate—Ed.

[81] “fulfilled Being”—Ed.

[82] the idea of absolute cognition—Ed.

[83] See F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 372).

[84] addendum—Ed.

[85] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[86] “but this Idea which has Being is Nature”—Ed.

[87] Hegel, Werke, Bd. VI, Berlin, 1840.—Ed.

[88] is usually said—Ed.

[89] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959,Chapter VII, p. 179. In footnote 1, Marx quotes from Hegel’s Encyclopaedia: “Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and react on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason’s intentions.” (Hegel; Enzyklopädie, Erster Theil, “Die Logik,” Berlin, 1840, S. 382).

[90] tortures—Ed.

[91] the Notion, the “idea”, “the unity of the Notion and objectivity”—Ed.

[92] volition—Ed.

[93] “The Idea of the Good”—Ed.

[94] See p. [233] of this volume.—Ed.